Who is traditionally accepted as the author of the odyssey

The ancient Greek author Herodotus estimates that Homer lived years before his own time, which would place him at around BCE, while other ancient sources claim that he lived much nearer to the supposed time of the Trojan War, in the early 12 th century BCE. Most modern researchers place Homer in the 7 th or 8 th centuries BCE. Idealized portrayal of Homer dating to the Hellenistic period; located at the British Museum.

Fragments of Homer account for nearly half of all identifiable Greek literary papyrus finds. The Iliad sometimes referred to as the Song of Ilion or Song of Ilium is an ancient Greek epic poem in dactylic hexameter.

Set during the Trojan War the ten-year siege of the city of Troy Ilium by a coalition of Greek states , it tells of the battles and events surrounding a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles.

Although the story covers only a few weeks in the final year of the war, the Iliad mentions or alludes to many of the Greek legends about the siege. The events are prefigured and alluded to more and more vividly, so that when the story reaches an end, the poem has told a more or less complete tale of the Trojan War. Nineteenth century excavations at Hisarlik provided scholars with historical evidence for the events of the Trojan War, as told by Homer in the Iliad.

Mortality, not immortality, is the dominant gene. In some stories, true, the gods themselves can bring it about that the hero becomes miraculously restored to life after death - a life of immortality.

The story of Herakles, who had been sired by Zeus, the chief of all the gods, is perhaps the most celebrated instance. It is only after the most excruciating pains, culminating in his death at the funeral pyre on the peak of Mount Oeta, that Herakles is at long last admitted to the company of immortals.

In short, the hero can be immortalized , but the fundamental painful fact remains: the hero is not by nature immortal. Addendum: the Odyssey is the most extended narrative about immortalization. But it happens only on a symbolic level.

The Odyssey makes it clear that Odysseus will have to die, even if it happens in a prophecy, beyond the framework of the surface narrative. The gods themselves are exempt from this ultimate pain of death. When the god Ares goes through the motions of death after he is taken off guard and wounded by the mortal Diomedes in Scroll 5 of the Iliad , we detect a touch of humor in the Homeric treatment of the scene, owing to the fact that this particular "death" is a mock death.

Mortality is the dominant theme in the stories of ancient Greek heroes, and the Iliad and Odyssey are no exception. Mortality is the burning question for the heroes of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey , and for Achilles and Odysseus in particular. The human condition of mortality, with all its ordeals, defines heroic life itself.

The certainty that one day you will die makes you human, distinct from animals who are unaware of their future death and from the immortal gods. All the ordeals of the human condition culminate in the ultimate ordeal of a warrior hero's violent death in battle, detailed in all its ghastly varieties by the poet of the Iliad. This deep preoccupation with the primal experience of violent death in war has several possible explanations. Some argue that the answer has to be sought in the simple fact that ancient Greek society accepted war as a necessary and even important part of life.

But there are other answers as well, owing to approaches that delve deeply into the role of religion and, more specifically, into the religious practices of hero-worship and animal-sacrifice in ancient Greece.

Of particular interest is the well-attested Greek custom of worshipping a hero precisely by way of slaughtering a sacrificial animal, ordinarily a ram. There is broad cultural evidence suggesting that hero-worship in ancient Greece was not created out of stories like that of the Iliad and Odyssey but was in fact independent of them.

The stories, on the other hand, were based on the religious practices, though not always directly. There are even myths that draw into an explicit parallel the violent death of a hero and the sacrificial slaughter of an animal. For another example, we may consider an ancient Greek vase-painting that represents the same heroic warrior Patroklos in the shape of a sacrificial ram lying supine with its legs in the air and its throat slit open lettering next to the painted figure specifies Patroklos.

Evidence also places these practices of hero-worship and animal-sacrifice precisely during the era when the stories of the Iliad and Odyssey took shape. Yet, curiously enough, we find practically no mention there of hero-worship and very little detailed description of animal-sacrifice.

Homeric poetry, as a medium that achieved its general appeal to the Greeks by virtue of avoiding the parochial concerns of specific locales or regions, tended to avoid realistic descriptions of any ritual, not just ritual sacrifice. This pattern of avoidance is to be expected, given that any ritual tends to be a localized phenomenon in ancient Greece. What sacrificial scenes we do find in the epics are markedly stylized, devoid of the kind of details that characterize real sacrifices as documented in archaeological and historical evidence.

In real sacrifice the parts of the animal victim's body correspond to the members of the body politic. The ritual dismemberment of the animal's body in sacrifice sets a mental pattern for the idea of the reassembly of the hero's body in myths of immortalization. Given, then, that Homeric poetry avoids delving into the details of dismemberment as it applies to animals, in that it avoids the details of sacrificial practice, we may expect a parallel avoidance of the topic of immortalization for the hero.

The local practices of hero-worship, contemporaneous with the evolution of Homeric poetry as we know it, are clearly founded on religious notions of heroic immortalization. While personal immortalization is thus too localized in orientation for epics, the hero's death in battle, in all its stunning varieties, is universally acceptable.

The Iliad seems to make up for its avoidance of details concerning the sacrifices of animals by dwelling on details concerning the martial deaths of heroes. In this way Homeric poetry, with its staggering volume of minutely detailed descriptions of the deaths of warriors, can serve as a compensation for sacrifice itself.

Such deep concerns about the human condition are organized by Homeric poetry in a framework of heroic portraits, with those of Achilles and Odysseus serving as the centerpieces of the Iliad and Odyssey respectively. Let us begin with Achilles. Here is a monolithic and fiercely uncompromising man who actively chooses violent death over life in order to win the glory of being remembered forever in epic poetry Iliad 9.

Here is a man of unbending principle who cannot allow his values to be compromised - not even by the desperate needs of his near and dear friends who are begging him to bend his will, bend it just enough to save his own people. Here is a man of constant sorrow, who can never forgive himself for having unwittingly allowed his nearest and dearest friend, Patroklos, to take his place in battle and be killed in his stead, slaughtered like a sacrificial animal - all on account of his own refusal to bend his will by coming to the aid of his fellow warriors.

Here is a man, finally, of unspeakable anger, an anger so intense that the poet words it the same way that he words the anger of the gods, even of Zeus himself.

The gods of Homer's Iliad take out their anger actively, as in the poet's descriptions of the destructive fire unleashed by the thunderbolt of Zeus. The central hero of the Iliad at first takes out his anger passively, by withdrawing his vital presence from his own people.

The hero's anger is directed away from the enemy and toward his own people, whose king, Agamemnon, has insulted Achilles' honor and demeaned his sense of self. This passive anger of Achilles translates into the active success of the enemy in the hero's absence, and the enemy's success is compared, ironically, to the destructive fire unleashed by the thunderbolt of Zeus.

In this way, the passive anger of the hero translates symbolically into the active anger of the god. Then, in response to the death of Patroklos, Achilles' anger modulates into an active phase - active no longer in a symbolic but in a real sense. From Ithaca. Include where you went, adventures along the way, and changes you found upon return. Who is traditionally accepted as the author of The Odyssey? How is The Odyssey related to The Iliad? What is a Homeric simile?

Explain 3 ways an epic differs from other works of literature. It is basically the sequel…the journey home after the war When does The Odyssey take place? Ithaca What is a Homeric simile? It compares heroic or epic events to simple and easily understandable everyday events.

Allusion: a figure of speech that makes brief reference to a historical or literary figure, event, or object. Allusions are always indirect. Helen - Wife of Menelaus and queen of Sparta. An infant when his father left for Troy. By Homer not Simpson. There are numerous theories about Homer. Here is some of what we know: Homer is an ancient Greek story teller and court singer.

The Odyssey. Unit 2 Notes Anecdote: a brief story about an interesting, amusing, or strange event told to illustrate a point. The Panathenaic Peplos was pattern-woven for ritual presentation to the goddess Athena at the climax of the quadrennial Athenian festival known as the Great Panathenaia. For more, see the earlier comment on I. A high point here in Rhapsody 6 is a tearful scene of farewell for Andromache and Hector. The loving wife will never again see her husband alive. The scene is justly admired for its artistic portrayal of this tragically doomed couple, but the verbal artistry extends even further: also to be most admired here is the remarkable precision of poetic language in representing lament as it was actually performed in ancient Greek song culture.

Figure 6. Apulian red-figure column-crater ca. Public domain image by Jastrow via Wikimieda Commons. In the immediate context, at I. The encounter of Glaukos and Diomedes prompts an exquisite meditation on the opposition of heroic mortality vs.

The general hostility of the divinity Athena toward the Trojans in this narrative sequence, despite the fact that the women of Troy are shown here in the act of formally worshipping her as the divine protector of their citadel, can be correlated with a pattern of personal hostility felt by the goddess toward Hector as a hero who aspires to some of the same roles that Athena herself exemplifies. In the case of the verses here, I. Like the goddess, Hector can be seen as an exponent of defensive tactics in protecting a citadel from sieges: as we saw in the comment on I.

In the context of I. But the tragedy is, Hector will fail in the role of protecting Troy, since he will abandon strategies of defending the city and will opt instead for staying on the offensive against an enemy that will ultimately capture Troy. And a key to his failure, as we will see in the course of the macro-narrative, is the fact that Athena herself will delude Hector into staying on the offensive until it is too late for him to revert to a defensive role.

Such a pattern of antagonism between immortal and mortal, it can be argued, derives from the ideologies of hero cult. The repetition of ritual wording in the sequence of three passages—from I. I say three restatements instead of one statement and two restatements because none of the three passages is basic, from the standpoint of traditional formulaic diction.

Not one of the three passages is formulaically predictable on the basis of the other two passages. To put it another way, the variation that we find in the three passages shows that none of the three forms is formally prior to the other two.

What priorities we find are purely a function of the narration, not of any chronological order in the composition of the three passages. In terms of oral poetics, such variation is a display of virtuosity in the art of composition in performance.

There are variant stories about detours experienced by Helen after her abduction by Paris. A trip to Sidon in Phoenicia is one such variant story. Besides the verses of I. Herodotus 2. The historian treats the unaugmented story of a direct voyage of Paris and Helen from Sparta to Troy as a foil for the augmented story of their Phoenician detour.

The poet of the unaugmented story, as Herodotus sees it, is a foil for Homer as the rightful poet of the augmented story. The noun poikilma at I. More than that, they convey also the specific idea of pattern-weaving a picture into a fabric.

Such a picture was pattern-woven into the Panathenaic Peplos of Athena. On the Panathenaic Peplos, see again the comment on I. Looking back at the entire narrative sequence as analyzed here—I. These two details correspond to the two most visible details distinguishing the city of Athens from most other cities.

At work here is a process I describe as split referencing. The reference is split between Troy and Athens. The referent is both the prehistorical citadel of Troy and the historical citadel or acropolis of Athens. As for the narrative here at I. The size and the beauty of the fabric evoke a vision of the quadrennial Panathenaic Peplos, which is notionally the biggest and most beautiful of all imaginable peploi.

That medium is Homeric poetry as performed at the quadrennial festival of the Panathenaia. The concept of kharis conveys the charisma of Homeric poetry as described by Homeric poetry. In terms of this description, the peplos in this narrative, I. This epic is notionally the biggest and the most beautiful of all epics. Like the peplos that is being offered by the women to Athena, this epic as performed at the Panathenaia has more kharis than all other epics.

The first name for the son of Hector, Astyanax [ Astuanax ], I. The second name for the son of Hector, Scamandrius [ Skamandrios ], I. According to this rival tradition, as we read in Euripides Andromache together with the scholia for that verse , Scamandrius was a bastard son of Hector who survived the Trojan War, to be distinguished from the legitimate son of Hector and Andromache, Astyanax, who tragically failed to survive.

By contrast, according to the dominantly Ionian traditions as represented by the Iliad as we have it, Scamandrius could not have survived if he was the same child as Astyanax, which is what we read here at I. So, the version as we have it kills off the potentially surviving half-brother.

What now follows is a general introduction to what is meant here. Ancient Greek lament is a deeply ritualized ritual practice, and there are survivals of this practice even to this day in some Greek-speaking communities. For background on the continuities and the discontinuities of this practice, I recommend the book by Margaret Alexiou, The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition Aside from the specific example of ancient Greek laments, there are many other examples of such a practice to be found in a wide variety of societies throughout the world.

In general, lament is understood to mean the formal expression of the emotion that we know as sadness—or, to say it more formally, sorrow. In the case of ancient Greek society as also in many other cases, however, the general definition of lament as an expression of sorrow is insufficient.

A lament can be more than just an expression of some inner sorrow by way of outward signs like crying. The outward signs can be formalized by way of crying and verbalizing at the same time. And the act of verbalizing can even become an act of singing , as in the case of ancient Greek traditions. In terms of these traditions, the act of lamenting is an act of singing while crying and crying while singing. And this kind of singing is crying; this kind of crying is singing.

The physical aspects of crying are all integrated into the singing: the flow of tears, the choking of the voice, the convulsions of the body, and so on, are all part of the singing. And such physical aspects are also formalized into a kinetic system of stylized movements—to be seen as a kind of dancing that is integrated with the singing. On such a kinetic aspect of lament, see further the comment on I. In the Iliad , Andromache is represented as singing three songs of lament for Hector.

Each one of these three laments is quoted, as it were, by the Master Narrator, and each one of the quotations corresponds morphologically to a genuine song of lament as sung by a lamenting woman. It must be emphasized, however, that the laments that we see being quoted by the epic of Homeric poety do not represent the actual meter of lament as sung in real laments.

The genre of epic regularly uses its own meter, which is the dactylic hexameter, in representing other genres that it quotes, including unmetrical genres Martin —42; also pp. But the morphology of laments quoted by epic still follows the rules of lament. On this point about the morphology of lament, see further the anchor comment on I. In other words, each quotation of each one of the three laments performed by Andromache is meant to be heard as a re-enactment, performed by the Master Narrator, of a genuine song of lament.

In the first lament, as quoted by the Master Narrator here at I. As for the second lament, at I. As for the third lament, at I. The first two laments can be seen as previews, as it were, of the more formal third lament. But it must be kept in mind that the traditions of lamentation can allow for the spontaneous singing of a lament as an instant response to a deep loss that has just happened—or even as a premonition of a future loss that has yet to happen.

The wording of Hector, addressed to Andromache here at I. I follow here the incisive observation of Vermeule … This wistful detail can be dated back to a world otherwise long forgotten, if Vermeule is right in saying that this kind of helmet went out of production sometime around the middle of the second millennium BCE. This weak smile carries over from I. After they say farewell to each other, Hector turns away and goes off to the battlefield, facing the certainty of death, while Andromache turns away and goes off to her chamber.

As we know from the overall references to Ajax in both the Iliad and the Odyssey , this hero is considered to be the second-best of the Achaeans in both epcis. So, it does not bode well for Hector that, in his duel with Ajax, he cannot succeed beyond fighting such a hero to a draw. If Hector can do no better than fight to a draw the second-best of the Achaeans, he is surely doomed when the time comes for him to face the very best of the Achaeans in Rhapsody Figure 7.

Image via Victoria and Albert Museum. The hero Dexiades is described at I. That, is, hippoi in such a context is an elliptic plural referring not only to the two horses that conventionally draw a chariot in Homeric diction but to the chariot drawn by the two horses. In the action being described here, the same hero Dexiades is mortally wounded at I. The metrical shape of such a form, long-short-long, would be incompatible with the rhythmical contour of the dactylic hexameter, which generally does not tolerate forms that have such a shape.

The divinities Athena and Apollo are not only supporting the Achaeans and the Trojans respectively. They are also opposing the Trojans and the Achaeans respectively. Even more than that, these divinities are also personally antagonistic toward individual heroes: Athena opposes Hector while Apollo opposes Achilles.

In this passage, the antagonism between Athena and Hector is particularly evident. When the seer Helenos at I. Before the occurrence of the name Zephyros here at I. So, the observer shudders at the chilling power of the storm at sea. The irony here is that the fighter still to be named will be the winner of a future duel with Hector. And that hero will be Achilles. As noted in the previous comment, the tomb of the hero whom Hector imagines he will kill is the tomb of Achilles, who in fact will kill Hector before he dies his own death.

For details about the funeral and entombment of Achilles see the comment on I. The memorial language imagined here in the wording of Hector corresponds to the formulaic language of poetry written down on stone in the form of epigrams. So, Homeric diction shows here an awarenes of the genre of epigrammatic poetry. But this genre needed the technology of writing only for the sake of recording a given epigrammatic poem, not for the sake of actually composing it.

Therefore, the awareness of epigrammatic language in Homeric diction does not require us to think that the technology of writing was needed for either the composition or the performance of Homeric poetry. Finally, Menelaos is first to volunteer for a one-on-one duel with Hector, I.

It seems of course fitting for him to be the first, since his grievance against the Trojans over the abduction of Helen is primary, but the problem is that all the Achaean chieftains are aware of his inferiority to Hector, I. Then Nestor goads the chieftains to take up the challenge of Hector, I. In the second of these two passages, I find it most significant that the referent is Achilles himself.

An aristeus , then, is a man who strives to be the best, aristos. While volunteering to accept the challenge of Hector, Menelaos blames the other Achaean chieftains for hesitating. Not only Menelaos but Nestor too blames the other Achaean chieftains for hesitating.

He goads them into action not only by blaming them but also by telling a story about one of his past successes as a warrior. This way, he engages in the language of blame as opposed to praise. This turn of phrase may point to the status of Hector as cult hero beyond his epic existence. Nestor, in speaking to the assembled Achaeans, prescribes that they build a Wall for the purpose of protecting both them and their ships from the attacks of the Trojans.

This purpose is spelled out at I. What Nestor prescribes for the Achaeans to accomplish here at I. The details of the prescription and of the description supplement each other. Both in the prescription and in the description, at I.

The cosmic river Okeanos is situated at the outermost limits of the world, which is encircled by its stream. The circular stream of the Okeanos flows eternally around the world and eternally recycles the infinite supply of fresh water that feeds upon itself : see I.

This mystical river Okeanos, surrounding not only the earth but even the seas surrounding the earth, defines the limits of the known world. Every evening, as the sun sets at sunset, it literally plunges into the fresh waters of this eternally self-recycling cosmic stream, I. Within these verses I. While the Wall is being built, I.

Zeus responds with reassurances, I. In other words, Poseidon and Apollo will never lose the epic glory that is theirs because they built the Wall of Troy. In terms of this formulation made by Zeus, it is not clear whether the Trojan Wall will later be utterly destroyed or simply damaged when the Achaeans finally conquer Troy.

Such a distinction is relevant to a claim made in historical times by the inhabitants of New Ilion, which was in fact the Old Ilion, otherwise known simply as Troy: the people of Ilion maintained that their Wall had not been completely destroyed by the Achaeans in the Trojan War and that their city, despite all the destruction, had never been left completely abandoned. This claim is documented but rejected by Strabo See Point 7 of the anchor comment at I. In my comments here on Rhapsody 8, I sense I am not far from reaching a critical mass of details that shed light on the unity and integrity of the Homeric Iliad.

With the upcoming comments on Rhapsody 9, this sense will I hope reach a definitive stage. Figure 8. Both epithets fit Zeus in his role as a thunder-god. In just a moment, the balance will be tipped in favor of the Trojans. As we see at I. You can slice it both ways, life or death. Right from the start, though, the slicing is viewed negatively, and that is why at I.

Once the tipping actually gets underway, the slices for the Achaeans now sink downward at I. For the Achaeans, both original slices now mean death, and, in fact, the originally single slice on the Achaean side of the scales can now be viewed as many slices for the many fighters. Now the slices can be viewed distributively: different Achaeans will get different slices of death, and that is why the single slice that had been pictured at each end of the scale at I.

Then at I. In occurrences to come, we will see that this powerful word signals the Will of Zeus. Seeing the lightning sent by Zeus, I. Mentioned by name at I. Only Nestor, it is said, does not retreat, though not because he does not want to: he simply cannot retreat because his chariot has been immobilized, I.

This trace horse, not named, is analogous to the trace horse of Achilles, named Pedasos, who is killed at a much later point in the Iliad , in a scene of chariot fighting that takes place at I. In that scene, a spear throw by Sarpedon in the course of his chariot fight with Patroklos hits Pedasos instead of Patroklos, I. As a trace horse, Pedasos is not attached to the yoke that attaches the other two horses to the chariot. This distinction is made clear at a slightly earlier moment, I.

At this moment, the premier chariot driver of Achilles, Automedon, is harnessing for Patroklos the war chariot of Achilles. On this chariot, Automedon and Patroklos will be riding off together as chariot rider and chariot fighter respectively.

At this slightly earlier moment, we see that there are two immortal horses of Achilles, Xanthos and Balios, who are attached to the yoke of the chariot, I. At this same moment, I. Then, at I. Having noted what will happen in this future action, we now return to the present, I. As Hector charges ahead, he is holding on to the reins of his own chariot horses, since he is described at I. For the moment, then, it is the chariot fighter Hector and not his chariot driver who is here taking the initative of attempting a high-speed attack on Nestor.

Hector is thus taking over here from his own chariot driver. As we are about to see, this driver is a hero named Eniopeus, who at this precise moment must be standing next to Hector on the platform of the speeding chariot—but not driving the vehicle himself. This detail about Hector as the momentary chariot driver helps explain what happens later on. There is an irony here. If Eniopeus and not Hector had been driving the chariot when Diomedes threw his spear, it could have been Hector who got hit and killed.

Having noted once again what will happen in the future action, we now return to the present. The Master Narrator goes on to say at I. Urging Nestor to leave behind his disabled chariot, Diomedes offers him an invitation: let the two heroes ride together on the new chariot of Diomedes and let them now counterattack Hector, I. The old hero agrees to the invitation, I.

And then he even takes the reins of the chariot of Diomedes in hand and drives the chariot himself, I. So, for the moment, Nestor takes over from Sthenelos as the designated charioteer of Diomedes.

In this other narrative, however, the son will die in the act of rescuing the father. He will be killed by Memnon. There is a reference to this other epic narrative in a song of Pindar, Pythian 6. The death of Antilokhos was also narrated in a part of the epic Cycle, the Aithiopis , attributed to Arctinus of Miletus, as we read in the plot-summary of Proclus p. Allen And there is a passing reference to the death of Antilokhos in O.

That said, it is important to add a clarification: to say that the Iliadic narrative about an entanglement experienced by Nestor is evocative of another epic narrative as found in the epic Cycle is not to say that the Iliad is referring to a pre-existing text.

In poetic traditions that stem from an evolving process of recomposition-in-performance, as in the case of Homeric poetry, any act of referencing needs to be viewed in terms of the historical context for any given performance. What can work as a reference in one context may not work so well—or work at all— in some other context.

A performance that follows one epic version can refer—however indirectly—to another epic version, but only if those who hear the performance are expected to know both versions. Referencing can be direct, as when Sthenelos the chariot driver of Diomedes refers at I. Or referencing can be indirect, as is the case here. The narrative about the entanglement of Nestor and his rescue by Diomedes is sure to have a special effect on those who already know of another narrative about a later entanglement of Nestor that leads to tragic consequences.

So, the term evocation suits such indirect referencing. Viewed in this light, evocation in Homeric poetry can be defined simply as a reference made not directly but only indirectly from one traditional context to another. Diomedes refers to this driver here at I. The name of this driver is Eurymedon, as we see at I. He may or may not be the same hero Eurymedon as at I.

For example, in the case of I. Also, in the case of I. By shorthand, the Athenian State version of Homeric poetry can be described as the Koine. For more on Aristarchus and the Koine, see under Aristarchus and see under Koine in the Inventory of terms and names. The dual theraponte here at I.

For the moment, however, Nestor has replaced Sthenelos as the chariot driver of Diomedes. And, also for the moment, Nestor has also displaced Eurymedon in the role of chariot driver. For now, then, both Sthenelos and Eurymedon function merely as attendants. The narrative goes on to say that Hector is deeply saddened by the death of his chariot driver, but he leaves the corpse of Eniopeus where that hero fell: instead of trying to rescue the corpse, Hector decides to fight on and immediately proceeds to select a new chariot driver, I.

Zeus signals it with his thunder and lightning, I. Three times Zeus thunders from on high on top of Mount Ida, I. And this moment will be in fact pivotal for the Will of Zeus, which will find expression in the fire of Hector. It will be a moment to be recorded by the poetic memory of the Homeric Iliad. See the comments on I. Unlike other heroes in Homeric narrative, Hector has a chariot drawn by four rather than two horses.

There are Athenian connotations to be seen here. Correspondingly, there is a prototypical hero of Troy who is likewise Erikhthonios: is is said at I. In this light, we may compare the reference at I. It can be argued that these details about four-horse chariots are relevant to Athenian agenda at work during an Athenian phase of Homeric transmission.

This kind of equating of a hero with the war god will figure prominently in future scenes of mortal combat. Relevant are previous scenes of mortal combat involving Diomedes: see the comments at I. Besides Hector, as here at I.

Besides sharing such an epithet, Hector and Patroklos will also be sharing the armor of Achilles: first it is Patroklos who wears this armor when he goes off to fight as a substitute for Achilles; and then Hector will wear it after he kills Patroklos.

The ships of the Achaeans are beached along the shores of a large U-shaped bay that opens into the Hellespont. Such a bay no longer exists, because of long-term silting from the river Scamander, which emptied into the bay. In the second millennium BCE and even later, however, the bay was very much of a reality, as the maps show, and the visualization in the Homeric Iliad approximates such a topographical reality.

This is not to say, however, that we should imagine the ships of the Achaeans as floating at anchor in the waters of such a bay: rather, the Iliad pictures the ships are beached along the shores of the bay, with their sterns facing inland and their prows facing out toward the waters.

On this positioning, see also the comment on I. Exploring further the Iliadic visualization, we can see that the beached ship of Odysseus is located at the bottom of the U-shaped bay, at the south in the middle of the bayline, while the beached ships of Achilles and Ajax are located respectively at the upper left and the upper right tips of the U, at the northwest and northeast.

In the later comments at I. As for the ships beached at the middle of the bayline in the south, they mark a political and sacral centerpoint for the Achaeans. The evidence for the preceding formulation will be presented in the comment on I. By blaming or insulting his fellow Achaeans for not daring to stand up to the onslaught of Hector, Agamemnon is goading them into action.

His insulting words recall a scene that took place in their collective epic past, on the island of Lemnos, where the Achaeans were competitively boasting about the exploits they will perform in the future when they fight in the Trojan War. As we already saw at I. When Agamemnon says at I. We see in this scene of a past event at Lemnos an epic precedent for what is ongoing in the present time of the Trojan War as narrated in the Iliad.

As we saw in the comment for I. Thus the act of sacrifice converts the feast of humans into a notional feast of the gods. So, what is happening at this feast? The disputants are Odysseus and Achilles, who are described at O. Similarly in the context of the feast at Lemnos as narrated by Agamemnon, each one of the heroes attending would be making such a claim. In other contexts, to be cited in the comment on O. The very idea of exposing a dead body to be eaten by dogs and birds, as conjured here at I.

The words spoken by Hector here reveal an overweening desire to be an immortal god, not a mortal human.

By speaking this way, the hero is challenging the cosmic order. On the readings of Zenodotus as opposed by Aristarchus, see under Zenodotus and under Aristarchus in the Inventory of terms and names. As Muellner shows, both variants can be justified on the basis of analyzing the formulaic system of Homeric diction. On the syntax of the wording, see the comment on I. The Master Narrator now approaches what can surely be seen as the highest point so far in the narrative arc of the Homeric Iliad.

Achilles has not spoken since Rhapsody 1. Now, in Rhapsody 9, he will speak again. And what he says will define what can and cannot happen in the rest of the Iliad. Figure 9. The embassy to Achilles, featuring Phoenix and Odysseus in front of Achilles. Attic red-figure hydra, circa BCE. Public domain image via Wikimedia Commons.

The beginning of Rhapsody 9 picks up where Rhapsody 8 ended. There is a brief reference at I. Then, in the rest of the verse at I. A fitting term for this sort of transition is rhapsodic sequencing.